Zhang Weiying, born in 1959, male, from Wubao County, Yulin City, Shaanxi Province. He holds a bachelor's degree and a master's degree from Northwest University, a Ph.D. from the University of Oxford, and is the co-founder and professor of economics at the National School of Development of Peking University (formerly known as the China Center for Economic Research of Peking University), and the director of the Center for Network Economy Research at Peking University.
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So far, China's reforms have been utilitarian. The basic philosophy of utilitarian reform is that economic development is the greatest "good" of society, and GDP growth is the greatest "good"; The criterion for measuring all policies is whether they are conducive to economic development and GDP growth, and whatever is conducive to GDP growth is good, and what is not conducive to GDP growth is bad; For the sake of GDP growth, we can even disregard the fundamental rights and dignity of the human person.
Utilitarianism is certainly not a Chinese invention. More than 200 years ago, the British philosopher Bentham created the philosophy of utilitarianism to guide the reform of the English legal system; After the transformation of his student, the economist John Moore, utilitarianism became the basic philosophical foundation of the whole of economics. Utilitarianism includes two aspects: individual utilitarianism and social utilitarianism: individual utilitarianism is that everyone pursues advantages and avoids disadvantages and maximizes their own utility function; Social utilitarianism is all about maximizing what is called "social welfare". The basic characteristic of social utilitarianism is to justify the means by the justification of the ends. Its criterion for evaluating anything is consequentialism, and as long as my goal is good, I can do whatever it takes, whether that goal is "economic growth," "national interest," or "social welfare."
In many cases, utilitarian economics also embraces the market economy, but it treats the market entirely as instrumental, that is, it embraces the market only when it is perceived as conducive to efficiency and to the maximization of so-called "social welfare"; Once the market is deemed to be detrimental to efficiency – for example, there are so-called "market failures" such as "market monopoly", "externalities" and "information asymmetry", it advocates intervention in the market. In the same way, utilitarian support for private property rights and freedom is instrumental.
But what we humans do is justified or unjustified, utilitarian criteria may not work alone, because such standards may infringe on the fundamental rights of human beings. For example, if there are a few people in society who are extremely ugly and the vast majority of people do not like them, then killing them, according to the criteria of social utilitarianism, will increase the total welfare of society ("the greatest happiness of the greatest number of people"). But can we consider it justified to do so?In reality, according to the standard of utilitarianism, the rights of any individual can be violated and deprived in the name of so-called "national interests", "collective interests" and "social interests".
Another standard of justice as opposed to utilitarianism, I call it rightism. Rightsism means that as individuals, each of us has some innate basic rights, which cannot be deprived for any reason, and the justification of the goal cannot justify the means. Rightsism also has a long historical tradition, it developed from the natural law theory of the ancient Greek Stoics, the theory of freedom proposed by the German philosopher Kant two hundred years ago is a kind of rightsist theory, the contemporary political philosopher Rawls's theory of freedom and equality, Nozick's theory of self-ownership, Rothbard's theory of natural rights and Hayek's free evolutionism, can all be classified as rightsist philosophy, although there are also great differences between them.
The rights-based defense of the market is based on the moral rights of man, the free nature and dignity of man, not efficiency, at least not just efficiency. That is, rights are higher than utilitarian.
Although we Chinese have not invented utilitarian philosophy, we have always had a utilitarian tradition. Qin Shi Huang's "rich country and strong army" is utilitarianism. The planned economy was also utilitarian, taking the country's economic development (the "catch-up strategy") as the criterion for all policies, thus justifying the deprivation of private property and individual freedom. After the reform and opening up, we no longer think that the planned economy is an effective means of developing the economy, and we have turned to the development of the market economy, but both the negation of the planned economy and the support of the market economy are utilitarian. This way of thinking has not changed to this day. Whether it is "everything for growth" or "stability overrides", in fact, it is typical utilitarianism, and the evaluation of any policy is to see whether it is conducive to economic growth (efficiency) and whether it is conducive to social stability, regardless of whether these policies infringe on people's basic rights. For example, for the sake of economic growth, large-scale construction is necessary, roads are built, houses are built, and shopping malls are built, so there will be demolition, and this demolition is justified, and it does not matter how it is demolished. We can even use barbaric means to demolish and relocate, causing many people's misfortune, in the name of the country's economic development. But if you think about it, even if our purpose is right, can we justify what we did in the demolition with such a purpose?
Similarly, when "stability overrides everything", for the sake of stability, we may ignore the basic principles of the rule of law and the basic rights of human beings, and some people may even say something like, "If you don't kill xxx, the world will be in chaos." "But can we consider this a valid reason to sentence a person to death?How can we prove that if we don't kill this person, the world will be in chaos?
Society cannot live without justice, but utilitarianism and rightism have different understandings of justice. Utilitarianism is about interests, not right and wrong. Rightsism, on the other hand, is about right and wrong, not about interests. The justice of rightsism is to respect the basic rights of every human being, and these basic rights cannot be denied for utilitarian purposes. We can illustrate this with the example of family planning. The purpose of family planning is to control the population. It sounds like this is very legitimate, because if there are too many people, we have limited resources, we have no way to develop, we have no way to live a good life. But let's think about it, is it in line with basic justice to deny people's basic reproductive rights, or even to force abortion in an inhumane way?Obviously, utilitarianism is incompatible with freedom.
We can also think about how we should think about democracy. Is democracy a means or an end?In the utilitarian view, democracy is merely a means, so the debate is focused on whether democracy is good for economic developmentIf it is good for economic development, it is good, and if it is not conducive to economic development, it is bad, and we cannot use it. Utilitarians often cite the example of India to prove that democracy is undesirable because India's democratic system does not bring economic prosperity. But from the rightist point of view, democracy is not only a means, but also an end. Because democracy is a way for people to exercise their rights, democracy is about the legitimacy of power.
Utilitarianism provides a justification for ** intervention in the economy. According to the utilitarian theory, China can concentrate on big things, which is conducive to short-term economic growth and coping with economic crises - for example, when the global financial crisis occurred in 2009, China quickly launched a strong stimulus policy by relying on the power of the world. However, from the perspective of rightsism, if the intervention infringes on the basic rights of the individual, it is unjustified, and the intervention policy cannot be endorsed because of the high "efficiency" of doing things.
In fact, utilitarianism has caused a lot of damage to social morality. Taking family planning as an example, some time ago, a professor who returned from studying abroad at a university in South China was expelled because he was overborn, what was the reason for the president to make such a decision? The family planning department sent a report to the principal, saying that if he was not dismissed, our school would not be able to get the advanced units this year. In a society, if people regard awards, medals, and bonuses as more important than other people's lives, I think it is difficult for such a society to have a good moral order.
We will also restrict people's right to speak for utilitarian purposes, such as growth, stability, etc. But the right to speak, in legal terms, freedom of speech, is actually the most basic right of people. If we talk about freedom for the sake of growth or stability, it will inevitably lead to a lack of professional ethics on the part of the people, lead to corruption, and lead to academic corruption. Similarly, if the basic principles of the rule of law are not respected and the independence of the judiciary is denied for the sake of growth and stability, judges will not have professional ethics and will inevitably lead to judicial corruption. The reason is simple, no one can take any responsibility for decisions that are not their own. When you write an article that is not done by the free will of your own heart, when you make a judgment, not according to the law and your conscience, it is impossible to hold you accountable for it, just as we cannot hold a stone responsible.
As a result, it can lead to the moral degradation of the whole society. The serious moral consequences of utilitarianism, we should recognize.
Of course, the reason why utilitarianism can be popular, both in China and abroad, is because it has certain historical reasons. The historical reason for this is roughly as follows: according to Ingle-Hard's theory of modernization, from traditional social agriculture to industrialized society, people's survival value comes first, and for the sake of collective survival, individual rights will be suppressed, and people are sometimes willing to accept this suppression. In situations of extreme poverty, people may voluntarily give up their freedom and dignity in order to survive. When I was in the countryside, I encountered such a thing, some people deliberately committed crimes and went to prison in order to eat, and when they came home from prison without food, they continued to commit crimes and go to prison. But after entering the post-industrial society, the value of individual rights, autonomy, and self-expression has become more and more important, which is actually what Maslow's hierarchy of needs theory tells us. Society is changing, and the traditional values of survival will gradually be replaced by self-expressed values, and at this time, if we still judge our policies and actions only according to utilitarian standards, it will not be consistent with the progress of mankind itself.
This is the transformation we have to face today. China's reform, whether we think about problems or formulate policies, must shift from a utilitarian orientation to a priority of rights. There are some fundamental values of humanity that should take precedence over any utilitarian considerations, and we cannot deny them for any reason, whether for the sake of GDP growth or to maintain stability. Of course, when it comes to the choice of material interests, we can use the utilitarian standard to conduct a cost-benefit analysis, but when it comes to the basic rights of human beings, the personality and dignity of individuals, we cannot use utilitarianism to measure. The legitimacy of our policies cannot be measured only by whether it is conducive to economic development and whether it is conducive to improving efficiency, just as we cannot evaluate it by whether it makes money.
The theme of our meeting today is to discuss the private economy, and we should look at the private economy from such a new angle. In the struggle for the best or better private enterprises, our past standard is to ask what kind of ownership is conducive to economic development, I think this is not enough, we can not only understand the value of private enterprises from the perspective of economic development, if this is understood, we may deny private enterprises at any time, and even nationalize private enterprises, because in any case, some people can always find reasons to say that private enterprises are not conducive to economic development.
We should recognize that freedom of entrepreneurship, innovation, and trade are the basic rights of human beings, including engaging in the financial industry, and we cannot deprive them of them for any other reason.
Utilitarian considerations cannot establish a real market economy because, as I said earlier, we can deny it at any time from another point of view that it is not conducive to economic development or social stability. The market is not only a tool for GDP growth, but also a way for human beings to realize their self-worth and pursue excellence. As long as we respect the basic rights of people and give everyone equal freedom, the market economy will naturally come. On the other hand, if our systems and policies do not respect the basic rights and freedoms of human beings, no amount of reform measures will be able to establish a real market economic system.